AUSTIN (Nexstar) — Just weeks into the school year, Texas school districts responded to numerous violent threats, with Nexstar’s Texas stations reporting on threats to at least 20 schools.
State lawmakers on Wednesday reviewed the impact of House Bill 3, a 2023 school safety law passed in aftermath of the Uvalde school shooting.
Lawmakers and superintendents at that hearing identified shortfalls in the law, which imposes broad security mandates that include infrastructure changes, training upgrades and an armed guard at every campus. But some lawmakers said that the bill did not come with enough money to implement those requirements.
Rep. Steve Allison, R-San Antonio, said Texas “has created another unfunded mandate for something very important.”
The law provides $15,000 per campus for school security, but that “does not come close” to paying for a full-time armed officer, one school official told the committee Wednesday.
Texas School Safety Center’s Dr. Kathy Martinez-Prather said the increase in threats could be due to a “contagion effect,” in which schools see an uptick of threats after a high-profile mass casualty event, like the recent school shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia.
Education commissioner calls for cellphone ban in Texas schools
The idea of banning cellphones in Texas public schools received a big endorsement Wednesday from Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath.
While discussing recent student performance in key skills testing, Morath told the Texas Senate Committee on Education that he would encourage a ban policy during next year’s session. He argued that smartphones negatively impact student progress.
“At least from my perspective, cellphones are extremely harmful for student learning,” Morath testified. “And if it were in my power, I would have already banned them in all schools in the state.”
State Sen. José Menéndez, D-San Antonio, seemed open to the idea during Wednesday’s hearing, citing concerns about young people’s mental health. State Sen. Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels, commended several school districts that already took matters into their own hands.
“While we make an attempt legislatively to ban cell phones from class, [Morath] said, and we have seen, superintendents have done it independently, and they are successful,” Campbell said. “So everything doesn’t take legislation. It takes leadership.”
If lawmakers pursue a ban during next year’s regular legislative session, they would follow in the footsteps of at least four states that already passed laws banning cellphones in classrooms. California is poised to become the fifth state, if the state’s Gov. Gavin Newsom signs legislation passed by the state assembly.
Jenn Wood, an Austin mother of two students, said she’d like to see the state act, because cellphones are a major distraction not just for learning.
“If (students are) hiding behind their cell phone during passing periods, if they’re hiding behind their cellphone during lunch, they’re not looking people in the eye. They’re not talking to people,” Wood said Thursday. “They’re not growing and developing personal relationships, and that’s a really huge hindrance on social development.”
The Lake Travis Independent School District instituted a new policy this school year requiring phones to be turned off and put away during class. Now, students in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade are no longer allowed to use cellphones during the school day.
Two years ago, the Thorndale Independent School District made students lock up phones during the school day in a “magnetically sealed pouch.”
Texas Rep. Ellen Troxclair, R-Lakeway, said Thursday that this is one of the first bills she plans to file during the upcoming session. She said she would like the state to offer money so that districts can securely store students’ phones.
“Kids still keep their cell phones on them, in their backpack or in their locker. They can be taken out, of course, in any kind of emergency, but bell to bell, they are free from the constant notifications and the constant distraction,” Troxclair said. “That is where we’ve seen the most overwhelmingly positive results, and that’s what I would hope to advocate for. Of course, I’m never going to mandate something like this without funding and so I am already talking to our budget appropriators to make sure if that’s what our school districts are interested in, let’s provide them support, encouragement and funding to make sure that they can do it.”
Critics of these proposals have often cited security concerns as driving their opposition since students would not be able to access their phones in the event of an emergency on campus. Eva Noyola, an Austin mother of two students, said that’s what would worry her, too, even though she supports the idea of not making cellphones available during class periods.
“My concern about it is that, given the security situation that we’ve had in this state and in many other places in the U.S., is that things happen in schools,” Noyola said. “Sometimes there’s emergency situations, and sometimes they’re really horrendous emergency situations. I really, really want my kid to be able to reach out to either ask for help or to call me in case of an emergency like that, so not having access to the phone through the entire school day is something that I’m very hesitant about.”
Troxclair, though, said Morath’s support for a cellphone ban in classrooms could have sway when lawmakers return on Jan. 14 to begin debating bills.
“We spend the largest portion of our state budget on public education,” she said, “so as a mom of young girls, this is the right thing for my kids, but also as a legislator who’s appropriating billions of dollars to public education, we want to make sure that those monies, are used efficiently and effectively to teach children, not for anything else.”
Recent data from Pew Research shows that cellphones are nationwide problem of distraction. That data shows 72% of U.S. high school teachers said cellphones create a major distraction among students, while 33% of middle school teachers and 6% of elementary school teachers said that phones are a problem.
U.S. House committee advances Kids Online Safety Act
A House committee advanced sweeping online protections for kids Wednesday, but many lawmakers did so begrudgingly.
The legislation aims to hold tech companies more accountable for dangerous content on their platforms. However, Democrats and Republicans said last-minute changes water it down too much.
“I don’t know that I could support the House version if it comes to the floor in this manner,” said U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla.
Castor voted yes with the hopes of changing the legislation back to the Senate-passed version.
U.S. Rep. Raul Ruiz, D-Calif., voted against the measure’s advancement, worried the House version no longer blocks social media companies from promoting dangerous content that contributes to depression, eating disorders and substance use disorders.
“This is the very content that has already devastated so many families and claimed the lives of so many kids,” Ruiz said.
But U.S. Rep. Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., defended the changes he made, arguing the legislation still addresses content related to physical violence.
“My goal is for this bill to become law,” Bilirakis said.
Bilirakis said the updates ultimately better guard the measure against future legal challenges.
“Sadly, we know Big Tech will pour millions into their lawsuits to tear the law down in the courts,” he said.
Some fellow Republicans remain concerned the overall legislation would give the Federal Trade Commission too much power and censor conservative views.
“If the FTC decides that a design feature causes ‘serious emotional distress,’ which is by the way a subjective definition that’s subject to change, how does that not end up implicating content moderation? It will,” said U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas.
However, Crenshaw ultimately supported its advancement.
It’s unclear when the full House could consider the measure since changes are likely and House leaders have resisted it. The Senate passed its version 91-3.
The Federal Trade Commission released a new staff report Thursday on major social media and video streaming services. It found the companies engaged in vast surveillance of their users and failed to adequately protect them online, especially children and teens.
Texas leaders develop new database to stop ‘threats’ from Venezuelan gang members
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott discussed a new database aimed to help identify and stop the “threat” of Venezuelan gang members entering the United States, according to a release from the governor’s office.
Abbott held a press conference Monday morning to announce the database. He was joined by the Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw, Texas Border Czar Mike Banks, Houston Police Department Chief J. Noe Diaz and National Border Patrol Council Vice President Chris Cabrera.
Abbott said that since 2021, more than 3,000 illegal immigrants from Venezuela have been arrested in Texas.
Abbott focused his discussion around the “vicious Venezuelan gang” Tren De Aragua or TDA.
“We need to aggressively address this threatening challenge,” Abbott said.
According to a report from the United States Customs and Border Protection Agency, reports of single adult encounters at South Texas borders have dropped by 27.9% in 2024.
According to a recent report from News Nation, TDA started in a prison in Venezuela nearly a decade ago. TDA has now expanded to what state and federal officials are calling a “transnational criminal organization.”
“TDA is notorious for their brutal violence, murder, kidnapping, extortion, bribery and trafficking of drugs, weapons and even humans,” Abbott said.
Abbott said through a collaboration between the State of Texas and several other state and federal agencies, they have discovered that TDA has been given the “green light” to shoot U.S. law enforcement officers.
Abbott announced that through efforts working alongside state and federal government agencies, Texas is working on a database that will help figure out which immigrants are affiliated with TDA.
“We will build that database by looking at common traits shared by TDA. Some of those characteristics include tattoos, scars, marks, types of crime and methods of operation,” Abbott said.
In an effort to directly target TDA, Abbott has directed DPS to elevate TDA to a “tier 1” gang.